Marketing Agency, Advertising Agency & Design Agency Glossary

Computer Aided Design is a three-dimensional drawing system used for engineering drawings in design. CAD is sometimes mistakenly or interchangeably used to refer to 3-D designs used in animation or for 3-D modelling design used for technical brochures or property brochures. The

Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing or Computer-Aided Personal Interviewing. Face-to-face interviews used by marketing consultants or market research specialists when using computer-based questionnaires for market research analysis.

Captive markets by their very design provide an ideal method to artificially inflate prices to customers. Where a customer is in an environment like a motorway service station, at an airport or tourist attraction and has no other alternative source from which to purchase, captive market marketing can be used to inflate prices for articles such as books or refreshments to a value which would be well in excess of what you would expect to pay on the high street or Internet.

An immoral and illegal arrangement designed to make maximum profit through setting or fixing artificially high prices within a particular market sector. Marketing consultants will not get involved in any cartel arrangements.

Products are grouped and managed by strategic business unit categories. These are defined by how consumers views goods rather than by how they look to the seller, e.g. confectionery could be part of either a 'food' or 'gifts' category, and marketed depending on the category into which it is grouped.

A specific type of marketing designed to engage with socially or ethically aware customers. Cause-related marketing appeals to the greater good of humanity, for example organic foods or in the case of company ethics such as was originally used by The Body Shop. These companies aim to do business and protect and respect animal life or the planet. A company adopting this approach must ensure that all of its activities are carried out in a way which supports their claim to be green and eco-friendly. Marketing consultants involved in cause-related marketing or social marketing activities need to be particularly careful in the design of marketing activities and marketing strategies to ensure the long-term plans do not compromise marketing platform of the company involved. There have been several examples of companies using CSR (corporate social responsibility) or cause-related marketing to better long-term sales, however they may be compromised in situations where they are exposed by the media for ignoring their corporate social responsibility claims.

(Also called distribution channel) A channel is a network of organisations and systems for getting the product from the producer to purchaser. The term channel marketing commonly refers to marketing activities through a particular channel or channels.

Click-through advertising is a marketing technique used by online marketing consultants and web design agencies. When a user clicks on an online advert which opens a link to an advertiser's website, revenue is generated for the company hosting the advert. Click-through marketing forms the fundamental basis of PPC (pay per click) advertising used extensively by search engine organisations such as Google.

Club plan selling is a term used by marketing consultants and marketing companies to refer to member-get-member marketing programs. Club plan selling users existing customers or members to gain reward for 'introducing another person' to a product or service. Club plan selling is also used in advertising by advertising agencies to promote.

An advertising agency which develops an advertising campaign which compares a product with a competing brand is said to be using comparative advertising. An advertising agency must be careful to avoid accusations of misrepresentation from competitors however highly trained marketing consultants may assist in the development of comparative advertising.

A term used by marketing companies and marketing consultants to signify the product, proposition or benefit that puts a product ahead of its competitors. Advertising agencies often use competitive advantage to drive home the product benefits.

Visual and/or verbal stimulus presenting an idea for a product, service or advert are known as concept boards. Concept boards can be used by marketing companies or an advertising agency to initiate discussion as part of the brand building process or simply to convey a creative idea. At thinktank, one of the team of marketing consultants will always be involved in a production of concept boards.

A consumer is defined by marketing consultants as a member of the general public who buys and uses a product or service. Marketing consultants and advertising agencies is often use the term customer in exchange for a word consumer. Also a marketing agency or advertising agency may also referred to a customer or client to refer to a B2B customer. Some marketing consultants believe that the term client is used when the identity is personally known to the company and that the term customer refers to a purchaser of a product or service who is not well known to the company. Marketing consultants and advertising agencies often get too caught up in discussing the differences between the terms.

Consumer behaviour refers to the buying habits of the general public and their patterns of product acquisition and usage. Marketing agencies and advertising agencies are particularly interested in consumer behaviour and provides marketing experts with a basis to switch consumer behaviour in preference of a particular brand. Consumer behaviour is often affected by socio economic factors for example the professional status (e.g. solicitor, marketing consultant, teacher, accountant, mechanic) of an individual, their city town or postcode (e.g. Manchester, Lancashire, Cheshire, Liverpool, Wirral, Chester, Wigan, Salford, M16) or other factor.

An internet marketing term used by online marketing consultants and web design agencies. In its simplest form contextual marketing shows a user adverts based on terms for which they have searched. More advanced applications pull adverts based on the content of a website being viewed, or on an individual's browsing habits.

A term used by marketing consultants and market researchers to reach a cost-effective market research sample. For example it is easy to interview individual shoppers and this can be done on mass within a particular busy shopping centre. Convenience sampling sharply contrasts with random sampling and other forms of effective market research, however it is quick and easy to do.

Marketing consultants, advertising agencies and design agencies often talk about the term convergence. Convergence is a term which is now being used for around 15 years by people within design companies and advertising agencies to refer to the 'coming together' of TV/Video/PC/Telephone and other forms of media.

Web development companies, web design companies and design agencies all use cookies to track website visitors. Cookies are very small files which are downloaded onto a person's computer when visiting a website. Cookies can be used to determine website visitor habits or trends which can be in turn used for marketing intelligence. Cookies can be used to monitor activities down to a local level for example Internet advertising can be targeted at a particular region or town for example, Northwest England, Liverpool, Manchester or even down to level such as Warrington, Wigan, Bolton, Salford etc.

Also referred to as IP (intellectual property), copyright is very important to an organisation whether it is a clients or a design agency. Design companies or design agencies automatically have copyright on the materials as soon as they produce them for a client. The design company is protected under law in the eventuality that a client or competitor attempts to copy the idea or design. Many design companies or design agencies providing design services for clients choose to hand over the copyright directly to the client on full payment, however the copyright only includes the actual design itself and not the original files, unless clearly stated in contract. Copyright exists immediately at the point of creation however it can be extremely difficult to enforce without the backing of a solid understanding of IP law and a good IP solicitor.

Copywriting is not the same as copyright! Design companies such as design agencies or advertising agencies will use an experienced commercial copywriter to provide words or advertising slogans using client promotions. Copywriting is the creative process by which written content is prepared for advertisements or marketing material such as a corporate brochure, annual reports, magazine advertising, catalogue design, web design except.

(Corporate ID) Corporate identity (corporate ID) is a term used to signify the image of a company. This term commonly is used by a design company or advertising agency to loosely refer to describe a company or brand logo, typeface etc.

A complex mix of characteristics, such as ethos, identity and brand image, that make up a company's public personality. Corporate reputation hinges on investor confidence, unlike brand reputation which is contingent on customer confidence and is reflected in sales. Marketing consultants involved with exit strategies or the development of exit strategies understand the importance of corporate reputation. Smaller firms may enjoy a good corporate reputation within one particular city for example Liverpool but not another for example Manchester or Preston.

The term corporate strategy can be used by the finance directors, chief executives, HR executives, operations directors, marketing departments or external marketing consultants in reference to the main company marketing plan or business plan containing a 'mission' human and financial resource strategies together with all the business strategies of the company in priority order.

Cost-plus pricing is generally not something which is recommended by a marketing company or by any of the marketing consultants at thinktank. Cost-plus pricing refers to the selling of a range of products by setting the price on the basis of adding a fixed mark-up to the total costs of production and associated costs.

A marketing consultant is best placed to advise on crisis management issues. Crisis management is the process of effectively combating negative publicity or the potential of negative publicity caused by a serious event, product failure or adverse publicity itself. Generally speaking, this should not be left to a design company or advertising agency to advise on, unless they have extensive experience in a crisis management.

Company culture is the philosophy of a company, reflected in aims. The aims can be anything from improving customer satisfaction or employee satisfaction through to things such as a company's effect on the environment. Company culture is the domain of the HR department however, a good marketing consultants employed by a full-service marketing agency such as think tank marketing & advertising Manchester can play a vital role in ensuring that a mission statement, corporate values etc are created in a way which is meaningful.

Customer lifetime value is a term used by marketing companies to refer to a particular lifetime value of one customer. Customer retention strategies implemented by marketing consultants or marketing departments can evaluate the level of 'net worth 'of a particular customer account. The profitability of a particular customer during the lifetime of the relationship, as opposed to profitability on one transaction is measured using customer lifetime value. The term should not be confused with average customer lifetime value or other similar terms used in marketing and relationship marketing.

Customer loyalty is a term used loosely by many design companies, however advertising agency firms or marketing companies generally have a more in-depth perspective about the term customer loyalty. Customer loyalty related to the feelings or attitudes that incline a customer either to return to a company, shop or outlet to purchase there again, or else to re-purchase a particular product, service or brand. Customer loyalty may vary by town, region or country (for example there may be a difference between Manchester, Liverpool or Warrington, between the Northwest of England and the south-east of England or by country for example the UK may be different than in France). Marketing consultants with a specialism in relationship marketing can advise on customer loyalty programmes.

A term used by marketing agencies or marketing companies to measure the proportion of customers migrating away from a business or product every year. The number or proportion of customers who defect from buying your brand every year is a good indicator of the success of relationship marketing or retention strategies employed by a company.

The number or proportion of customers who are retained (stay doing business with a company) every year. This is usually expressed as a percentage or by using the average customer lifetime value. Customer retention can be improved significantly by using a good marketing company or advertising agency like Manchester's think tank marketing & advertising.

Customer satisfaction is the marketing study which looks at customers' experiences of a product or service against their expectations. Many large organisations or franchise type operations employ strict control on their regional network of branches to ensure consistency. For example, one would always want consistency of service when a branch was in Manchester, Liverpool, Warrington, Chester, Preston, Bolton, Wigan or central London. Measuring customer satisfaction by using a good marketing consultants or market research agency and ensuring that this is consistent across the entire company will serve to improve brand equity and company image.

A customer service program is a marketing strategy design to ensure that customers receive a positive buying experience, which in turn improves customer loyalty, increase cross-selling and promote advertising by word-of-mouth. Global organisations or local organisations in Manchester and Liverpool used customer service programs.